For Release: Monday, September 9, 2024
Washington, DC — In the wake of the school shooting allegedly committed with an AR-15 style assault rifle by a 14-year-old student at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, today the Violence Policy Center (VPC) released a new backgrounder on the gun industry’s marketing of guns to children.
The Apalachee High School attack is the most recent example of a mass shooting at a school by a child armed with a gun supplied by his parents. Yet, while the father who purchased the gun now faces murder charges alongside his son, little attention has focused on the role played by the firearms industry, which relentlessly markets guns to children — directly and through their parents (see Christmas Instagram post below from firearms importer Century Arms). With complete disregard for the obvious hazard of placing the most lethal consumer product on the market in the hands of kids, the gun industry seeks only profit and preys on the bad judgment of parents.
VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann states, “The gun industry is targeting our children, urging parents to put the most lethal weapons into the smallest hands. As a nation, we must demand that gunmakers be named, shamed, and held accountable for their increasingly lethal products and the inevitable death and injury that results when they are used for the exact purpose for which they were designed — especially by children against children.”
The VPC has for decades tracked the gun industry’s marketing efforts to children, women, and communities of color. Information in the backgrounder is drawn from new VPC research as well as its 2016 study “Start Them Young”—How the Firearms Industry and Gun Lobby Are Targeting Your Children. Related research can be found on the VPC’s Campaign for Gun Industry Accountability website.
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The Violence Policy Center is a national educational organization working to stop gun death and injury. Follow the VPC on X/Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
